Introduction

This guide will be much cleaner to read if you disable print layout (in the “view” menu).

Characters in Frosthaven don’t have a fixed gender, so that you can roleplay your character as
the gender of your choosing. I played my first Deathwalker as a woman, so I’ll be using she/her
pronouns. Feel free to choose a different gender for your Deathwalker!

The Deathwalker is a low health character that deals large amounts of damage and provides
some crowd control. She uses dark to enhance some of her attacks, but her main focus is a
special mechanic: shadows. The Deathwalker can create, move, and consume shadows using
her ability cards. These shadows enable or enhance her attacks, allowing her to perform more
powerful attacks and traverse the battlefield very rapidly. She will need to take some time to
manage their positioning, but the payoff is very well worth it.

Shadows are created and consumed by your ability cards. Shadows completely ignore
everything except walls and other shadows for the purpose of their placement and movement.
They can be placed in any hex, excepting those with another shadow present. You can only
have five shadows at once; if you would place a sixth, you must first remove an existing
shadow. Shadows are considered adjacent to figures both in or adjacent to their own hex.
By themselves, shadows do not have any effect. However, many of your abilities are stronger if
you have more shadows, shadows in the correct positions, or if you remove shadows as part of
the ability. Because many of these abilities require precise positioning of shadows, you have a
number of effects that let you move shadows around the map.

While you have a number of ways to remove shadows, you only have a few ways to create
shadows, especially at lower levels. Removing them does have a significant cost and you will
want to be careful about managing your shadow economy.

There are two main axes the deathwalker can focus on with their shadows: whether they want
to consume shadows for effects or position them precisely for effects; and whether or not they
want to use shadows from a distance or use shadows from up close. While it is tempting to put
the strongest emphasis on whether or not you consume shadows, the fact remains that if you
never consume any shadows, you will eventually have lots of wasted potential. As a result, we
will explore two potential ways to focus our build: consuming from up close, and consuming
from afar. These are certainly not the only ways to build this class: you could blend the builds
together, choose a more support focus, or come up with an entirely different plan. The goal here
is to showcase two major playstyles and provide a starting point for those who wish to
understand the deathwalker better. These builds are somewhat inspired by Gripeway, who
published a video guide emphasizing the first of these two build paths.

The first build, which we will call the Shadow Step build (or simply the melee build), emphasizes
attacks from close range. The name Shadow Step implies that we will spend a lot of time
occupying our own shadows. This is encouraged in particular by one of our perks, which gives
enemies targeting us permanent disadvantage while we occupy our own shadows. We will look
to maintain a high shadow count to empower Strength of the Abyss, and spend lots of time
moving ourself and our shadows into more powerful positions.

The second build, which the community has dubbed Puppetmaster (or simply ranged),
emphasizes attacking from a distance. Moving ourself is not a significant concern as the vast
majority of our attacks require positioning of our shadows, not ourself, so we will use most of our
bottom actions to move shadows into position or to teleport ourself. We don’t need to maintain a
very high shadow count, and moving our shadows is time consuming, so as long as we maintain
one or two shadows we are happy to spend the excess as soon as we get them.
Level 1 Cards
 Call to the Abyss

Call to the Abyss is a 100% mandatory card for any Deathwalker. This is your only way to
repeatedly make shadows at lower levels, and without shadows, your power is greatly
diminished. The top action allows you to mark any enemy attacked by you or one of your
summons. When a marked enemy dies, you may create a shadow in the figure’s hex or in an
adjacent hex. It is important to note that you do not have to be the one to land the killing blow; it
is enough to mark an enemy, then have an ally, trap, wound, or other source of damage finish
them off. You can only have one enemy marked at once, so when you attack a different enemy,
you must choose (before pulling your modifier) whether to move the mark or leave it on the
previous target. Remember that when performing multitarget attacks, you can choose the order
of targets; whenever practical, you should choose to first attack targets that have a chance of
dying, so that you can generate shadows from the kills and leave the last enemy marked. This
will be the first or second action you play in nearly every scenario in every level of every build
path. Through this action, you can consistently generate somewhere in the range of 3-5
shadows in a longer rest cycle, depending on how much health the enemies have.

The bottom action reliably makes exactly one shadow per rest cycle. In some scenarios where
the first room is extremely dangerous and your team needs you to act immediately, you can get
away with using this on your first turn and doing something with shadows right away. In general,
we would like to avoid using this, not because the action is bad, but because of the opportunity
cost of not being able to use the top. Not having the top for an entire rest cycle will feel very
bad, as you will make one shadow on bottom but lose at least two or three from the top. In fact,
we would love to have both, and if you had an item or ally that can recover a card for you (such
as the stamina potion from Gloomhaven), you could open with the bottom of this card on the
first round, recover the card, and play the top on turn two or three.
 Eclipse

Eclipse offers an additional method for making shadows. You get three shadows right away, and
you get some of your element as a nice kicker. Of course, Call to the Abyss will generate more
shadows over the course of a scenario. However, there are a few big reasons we might play
Eclipse. First, Eclipse makes the shadows instantly. If there aren’t low HP enemies that are
likely to die in the first two rounds, you are going to be struggling without shadows at the start of
the scenario. Eclipse can help you come online a bit faster. Because this isn’t on the same card
as Call to the Abyss, we can even do both! We have eleven cards, so in scenarios requiring
high tempo at the beginning we can get away with using both actions immediately. It’s worth
noting that neither of these shadow generating actions provide experience explicitly, but virtually
every action that consumes a shadow grants you an XP for each shadow consumed, so they do
provide experience indirectly. For scenarios where you need extraordinarily high impact in the
first few rounds, you can play this top action with Call to the Abyss’ bottom action to get four
shadows immediately. This can hurt, as you won’t be able to replay Call to the Abyss the same
cycle (unless you have a way to get it back), but you will be exceptionally powerful for the first
room.
The bottom is actually very significant for us, as we don’t have a large number of high
movement actions. If your plan is to traverse the map by teleporting, then this probably won’t
make a very large difference. If, however, you need to walk from place to place, or need to
traverse a room but not the whole map, then this action is fantastic. As a result, we’re more than
happy to lug this around in scenarios where we don’t need it in the first room, and drop it in the
last room. It will cost us a loss, but it will save us many turns of repositioning the shadows from
room one into room three, and that’s a win.
 Fluid Night

Now that we’ve got some shadows, let’s figure out how to use them. Fluid Night sets a very high
benchmark for shadow consumption with precise positioning: an attack five that creates
darkness at any range. Not every action will meet this benchmark, but it’s a fantastic point of
comparison. Any action that consumes a shadow for less will need to justify why it’s worth our
time. Note that here is where we get experience: every action that consumes a shadow grants
at least one experience point per shadow consumed. Fluid Night is simply a solid core action at
a solid initiative, and any build that is hoping to regularly consume shadows will love this card.

The only bad part about the bottom is that we can’t use the top. Spending a shadow to negate a
hit is a very reasonable safety net. Ideally you won’t be getting hit much when you don’t want to,
but if you do accidentally take one very large hit, you can use this to save your bacon. Unless
you’ve shoved a shadow forwards in the midst of fighting, the teleport will probably not gain you
much tempo in terms of positioning. However, since we can choose to skip this on small sources
of damage and save it for big ones, this action is a fantastic use of a bottom action for whenever
we have the spare time and don’t need the top.
 Anger of the Dead

Anger of the Dead lets us remove shadows in a very different way. Each shadow on its own
provides low value, or moderate value if the enemy has shield. If we think of Fluid Night as +3
damage and increased ranged over the standard attack two, then it takes three shadows here to
catch up. However, there is one very significant reason we love this card: XP. More often than
not, you will be leaving behind at least a few shadows in a room. When progressing to the next
room, we can spend tons of actions getting them in half-decent position. Alternatively, we can
use this action to blow up an enemy, gain up to five XP, and then be early to the next room and
start marking enemies to make shadows immediately. If the shadows have alternate uses, or if
you know you’ll be able to get them to the next room at low cost, I would only use this against
shielded enemies. Against those, each shadow gives +2 damage, which is a fairly decent use.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t bother.

The bottom lets us wound everyone who starts in a shadow or enters a shadow during its turn.
It’s better if they start in a shadow, because the wound will tick immediately, but that’s not
always possible. One strong opener is to play this paired with Eclipse and create a wall of
shadows for enemies to walk through. Shadows aren’t negative hexes, so enemies won’t avoid
them. This means it’s actually much easier than you might think to get wound on everything in
the scenario. It’ll be difficult to have such a large impact without eclipse, as most of your shadow
movement is on the bottom. That being said, even just one or two shadows in a narrow corridor
can do a lot of work. And even if you can’t, just using this as a fast initiative with a move two is
fantastic. We aren’t exactly lacking strong fast initiatives, but this is one of our best at lower
levels, so just for that we’re happy to keep it around.
 Lingering Rot

Our last shadow removal attack comes with a terrible initiative. The top action is fantastic; this
could theoretically be an attack on up to seven enemies if they clump up properly. Attack three
and poison is very high value for an action with this many targets, so if we can hit at least 4 or 5
enemies, we’re happy to run this loss. Since the enemies do need to clump first, we’ll typically
try to run this as the second card after opening a room, so that the enemies can walk up a bit
first.

With a powerful loss action, we’re looking for a strong, spammable bottom to go with it. Move 3
is fine, and the ability to make poison is fantastic. If our goal is to run melee attacks, we’re going
to love this card for our entire lifespan. If our goal is to deal our damage from a distance, we
won’t want to do this, both because it puts us in too much danger and because we need our
bottom actions to position shadows for us.
 Sunless Apparition

Here’s another way we can remove a shadow for value: Sunless Apparition lets us turn a
shadow into a nonloss summon. Boneshaper spends health to make their skeletons; here, we
spent a shadow to make our own friend. This summon has fantastic movement and damage,
though it will die if a light breeze knocks it over. Expect to summon this late, have it run in and
hit once, then die to an attack next round. Still, even in this worst case, this is effectively turning
a shadow into an attack 3, disarm that also marks the target. If the summon happens to hit two
or more times, this is insane value. We actually love the slow initiative here, because we want to
summon late and then go quick next turn. If the summon dies before we get to hit, we’re not
very happy with it, so try to avoid that.

The bottom is our first teleport, and it comes with a loot. The loot being before the movement
means you’ll need to move into position the previous turn, which is awkward if we’re just
teleporting away immediately, so don’t expect this loot to get a lot of value if movement is at a
premium. Still, being able to teleport across the map means you don’t need to bring much
movement for yourself if you’re spending time moving your shadows anyway.
 Strength of the Abyss

We’re fortunate this card is good, because the initiative is not. The top of this card justifies a
world where we don’t aim to consume shadows, but instead prefer to leave them on the map. If
we have all of our shadows out, this will be an attack six as a nonloss action. That’s incredibly
strong. It’ll definitely take a few turns to get there, especially if we don’t run the loss on eclipse,
but once we’ve got them, it’ll be pretty easy for us to keep them up. Unless we’re running
something like Anger of the Dead that consumes multiple shadows at once, we typically expect
our shadow gain to be net positive, so it’s still going to be worth it to spend a shadow here or
there for some extra value, but the bar for that value is that much higher now that the shadow
will also cost us one damage on this attack if we don't replace it.

The bottom is decent. We saw with our shadow consumption that adding +2 is fairly average in
terms of what we can expect from consuming a shadow. Getting the ability to do that on every
action is a very strong power. The unfortunate reality is that losing putting up this card as a loss
just doesn’t fit that well into what we’re trying to accomplish. If we want to consume shadows for
value as part of our build, then we don’t want to spend shadows for the moderate value, we
want them to produce insane value, like with Fluid Night. Conversely, if we are trying to gain
value by virtue of shadows being present, then we want the top of this card instead. Even if we
could play both, we can’t really afford the stamina hit if we’re trying to also play Call to the
Abyss, Eclipse, and perhaps lose a card for a bursty turn. Finally, the movement typically won’t
find value as we can teleport whenever we really need a large step. This card is great for the
top, but the bottom half of this card just isn’t worth it most of the time.
 Shadow Step

So now that we have a reason to leave our shadows around, we need to know what to do with
them. Shadow Step is a nice example of a card that cares about shadow positioning. Top
movement is fantastic, especially when it comes with an attached attack. Unfortunately for us,
we don’t actually have any bottom attacks early, so this isn’t really an extra attack so much as it
is our only attack. Still, we can either combine this with a move to rapidly traverse the map
towwards an enemy, or combine it with some shadow movement to properly line up the hit. This
isn’t our strongest attack, but the movement is good enough that we’re happy to have it.

The bottom loss can be ok. An emergency shadow drop in your own space can help smooth
down an awkward situation if you weren’t able to get your marked target to die and really need a
shadow to get anything done. The large movement and fast initiative will get you wherever you
need to be before your targets move, so in a pinch this can work great. Most of the time, we
won’t plan to use this, but it will save our bacon in numerous occasions.
 Call of Doom

With a precisely placed shadow, you can hit a lot of things for free. This is similar to the loss
from Lingering Rot, but it’s much weaker, and muddles (with dark) instead of poisons. I wouldn’t
bother emphasizing the dark on this action, as muddle isn’t an amazing condition and it doesn’t
even get you an XP. Still, if lots of enemies are low, then you can use this to potentially pick up
several shadows with lucky flips. Furthermore, some of your modifiers have great conditions, so
this is a good way to dig for those. This is a fantastic candidate for an expensive enhancement;
for 100 gold, doubling the damage goes a long way towards guaranteeing a kill or two.

The bottom action is a core action that’s not fancy, but gets the job done. We’re about to see a
few attacks that need darkness to function, unlike the top of this card, which can do without.
Being able to make the darkness while moving a decent bit, at a fine initiative, is a staple for
elemental classes. Most builds will prioritize the bottom of this card until they find more powerful
ways to reliably make this element.
 Wave of Anguish

Another reward for keeping shadows on the map: an attack three stemming from each one. This
requires the shadows to be precisely positioned to reach full value, but if you can make this an
attack 15 at level 1, this loss can’t be beat. The fact that you can use multiple shadows to hit the
same target means it is easier than it looks to get massive value here. I wouldn’t use this for
three or fewer attacks, but 4 or 5 are absolutely worth your time.

The bottom action gives us our first opportunity to manipulate shadow position. Move ourself
two, then move each shadow a single hex. This isn’t a ton of shadow movement, but it’s good
enough to position shadows already on the battlefield into slightly more advantageous positions.
The main benefit here is that it lets us move as well, so for actions such as Shadow Step, where
we need to be in a shadow, this is a nice way to line up the action. It’s not really enough
movement to move shadows from room to room, so we will either need to abandon our
shadows or bring some additional options.
 Dark Fog

A very straightforward loss. Hit three things in a triangle, curse the ones that live, make our core
element, get an XP. This could have been in the Tinkerer’s kit and we wouldn’t have batted an
eye. The only catch is that we’re not always sure when we want to get the curses and when we
want to get kills for more shadows. If we kill several targets in quick succession, we get multiple
shadows; if the targets live, we get multiple curses. The flexibility between curses and shadows
make this a highly potent action. Just be careful: it is tempting to use this every time we see a
triangle, but between this, Call to the Abyss, and Eclipse, our stamina is precious. Try not to use
this the first instant it comes up, or we won’t be able to make it to the final room.

Another consequence of losing the card is losing access to the bottom. Rather than moving all
of our shadows a little, we move one shadow a lot. This will certainly get the shadow into proper
position for actions like Fluid Night and Shadow Step, and will actually allow us to move at least
one of our shadows to the next room, hopefully to teleport to. For any build that relies on
teleporting or frequent and precise shadow positioning, we’re going to need this card.
 Black Barrage

Black Barrage on top gives our first attack that doesn’t care at all about shadows, but does care
quite a bit about dark. This attack is very low risk, low reward. An attack 3 at very long range
doesn’t do a ton of damage, but it marks a key target at good (but not great) initiative and lets
you perform the ability from a safe distance. This is a fine attack to open the scenario with at
lower levels, letting you mark a target that is likely to die and set up shadows for future rounds.

The bottom is a happy medium between Wave of Anguish and Dark Fog in terms of shadow
movement. We’ll get to move all of our shadows, and we’ll get to move them a moderate
amount. Just like the top, this isn’t flashy but it’s solid and we’re rarely upset to use this action.
 Forceful Spirits

Our last dark consumption was low risk low reward; here, we get the opposite. We have to get in
close to get the damage off here. More often than I can count, I moved in to line up this double
hit and lost a card or two for my troubles. If you can avoid the punishment, though, then this is
insane value. Nonloss attack six is on par with our strongest actions, and the ability to split it on
two targets means we’ll very frequently be able to kill the first enemy and either mark or kill the
second, for a total gain of two shadows. I typically try to initiative weave with this one, pairing it
with a very fast or slow initiative to ensure that I don’t end up being punished for the aggressive
positioning that this action requires.

The bottom action is our second nonloss teleport at low levels. The extra benefit here is that we
can choose to be adjacent to the shadow. It’s not a huge gain, but that might amount to one
extra movement point, which often lets us perform a melee attack that we otherwise couldn’t.
Also, if someone is taking up our desired shadow, we can still make progress. A solid action let
down only by the fact that the top is so impactful.
 Rest in the Shade

Our last action is our most situational. The top lets us heal everyone who is in a shadow. This
requires a lot of coordination to heal more than two targets. In scenarios with lots of negative
conditions, it might be worth posturing around, but most of the time it’s just not efficient. Our
shadows will be near the enemies, not near our allies, and moving them properly means we’ll
need to move them back to attack with in the future. It’s a lot of work for a very situational effect,
and we’re usually better off preventing damage by killing things than by healing it after the fact.
There is definitely a support deathwalker build that you can attempt, but it’s so dependent on
who your allies are that I won’t expand fully on it here. For that build, you will love this action.
For our two damage-focused builds here, it’s underwhelming at best.

The bottom is again situational. Moving all shadows six is absolutely powerful, as it lets us keep
our momentum from the first room moving into the third room. However, in some cases we won’t
have enough shadows to bother, or the walk will be too long to be worth it, or else too short to
require this loss. If the top was spammable, we’d be fine to bring this around, but unfortunately
this card just doesn’t make the cut.
 Level-Ups
Level 2

Deepening Despair is a great nonloss attack at our best initiative to date. It requires some
precise shadow positioning, but it hits for a respectable amount, creates our desired element,
and doesn’t consume the shadows. If you’re going to be moving shadows anyway, this is a solid
card that you’re happy to have.
The bottom is highly situational but can singlehandedly win entire scenarios, letting your party
traverse vast distances just like you can.

Restless Spirits lets us get up close and personal. We can do a decent attack with a curse, and
we can eat the shadow to turn it into a huge attack. An attack six will frequently kill the target, so
when you’re eating the shadow, expect that you might not actually get the curse. Best case
scenario puts the target low enough that your team can finish them off, so that you mark them
and get the best of both worlds.
The bottom action gives you a decent shadow move, with the option to trade the shadow for
some direct damage. This is our first bottom damage option, and against shielded enemies it’s
absolutely phenomenal. Even if we don’t want to line up the bonus damage, we’re perfectly fine
to have an additional long range shadow movement option.

Shadow Step: Restless Spirits is the clear choice, giving us a very powerful melee attack and
some situational bottom damage.

Puppetmaster: Both options are solid choices, Deepening Despair for the top or Restless Spirits
for the bottom. I’d typically lean towards Deepening Despair as we’re lacking attacks early, but if
you’re starting this build at level 4+ I think Restless Spirits might be better to give us an instance
of bottom damage.
 Level 3

Dead Bolt is a very basic, very solid card. The top is an attack three at decent range that we
should be able to frequently pump up to curse. This isn’t large enough that we’ll often be killing
here, so the curse should actually make its way out.
The bottom is enough shadow movement that we might actually be able to move our entire
shadow squad from one room to another, by using this late in the cycle, resting, then using it
again early.

Ritual Sacrifice is not likely to do more than Strength of the Abyss much of the time. It has a
base of two more damage, but requires the shadows to be precisely positioned. We need three
shadows to tie the level one card, and four to beat it. Still, that card was borderline busted at
level 1, so even if we’re just picking up a second copy with a bit of variability (and a much
stronger initiative), we’re content. Pair this with the bottom of Wave of Anguish for maximal
positioning.
The bottom will frequently just be a move two that creates dark, which, much like the top was a
spinoff of Strength of the Abyss, is often a second copy of Call of Doom with a slightly weaker
action and a much stronger initiative. The bonus to add some shield is cute. We don't really
want to use this on ourself, and it’s difficult to predict the turns where you will want a large
shield, so the use cases for this are rare. Still, you can use this to create a supertank for a turn,
especially if someone has retaliate up, and you can hoover up shadows you know you won’t be
able to rescue for some free XP.

Shadow Step: Ritual Sacrifice provides lots of things we need and Dead Bolt doesn’t. We’re
very happy to add Ritual Sacrifice to our toolkit.

Puppetmaster: It’s always Dead Bolt here. This allows us to move our shadows more efficiently,
and gives us another fine use of dark when attacking.
 Level 4

Well, the top action looks much like that of Lingering Rot. Wound is often a little better than
poison, and we don’t lose the shadow, so this action is a bit better, but not by three levels, so we
wouldn’t take it for the top alone even if we did rely on losses.
To make this worth our time, we want a spammable bottom; and boy, do we get one. We can
now make an extra shadow for free once per rest cycle. We could have done this instead of
playing the loss on Call to the Abyss, but now we can do both. This is huge. Whenever we don’t
need to reposition shadows or ourself, we should use this ability. The fact that we get an extra
shadow here or there means that we’re happier to spend shadows a bit more liberally for
weaker abilities.

Yet another instance of movement and dark. This one turns us invisible; pair this with a fast
initiative, and you’ll be able to move into much riskier positions. Any deathwalker who is getting
up close and personal will love this ability.
The top is a delayed loss for ten direct damage. It’s always a bit scary to use this as the
enemies might heal before this pops them, so use it sparingly. The best use case is against a
high shield, moderate health enemy that doesn’t have any self healing. Realistically, you
probably won’t use this until the scenario is almost over, because the bottom is so essential that
it’s typically not worth giving it up.
Shadow Step: Pulled Across allows us to play much more aggressively now that we can be
invisible when need be. We’d love to have Fleeting Dusk for the bottom but we just won’t have
time to come back for it.

Puppetmaster: As we aren’t getting up close and can’t use invisibility well, Fleeting Dusk is the
clear pick here, giving us an extra shadow per rest cycle that we can consume.
 Level 5

Level five is where we really start to take off.

Just as Ritual Sacrifice was to Strength of the Abyss, so too is Dominate to Fluid Night. It is
almost strictly better, with plus one damage and a chance to disarm, but not a huge amount
better, and costs a dark instead of making one. 6 damage will kill often enough that we can
frequently discount the disarm, and one extra damage isn’t a major improvement. However,
remember that Fluid Night is busted at level one, so we’re beyond happy to just get a second
copy that trades dark for damage. And if you are attacking some very tanky enemies, this
disarm will do some fantastic work.
The bottom is yet another instance of move and darkness, this one being a bit longer range. It’s
easy to discount the power here, but this is our only other move 4 so far besides Eclipse. That’s
not insignificant.

Medium gives us our first nonloss way to make shadows with a top action. An attack 3, boosted
to 5 with dark, that generates a bonus shadow if it kills. That’ll make two shadows with Call to
the Abyss, so this is a very efficient use of our time. The fact that we require the kill means you
will want the dark to try and guarantee it, and if you have an ability to get advantage you’ll want
to use it here.
Meanwhile, the bottom action is amazing. If you were only ever moving one shadow at once,
this lets you do it for free. This won’t get your shadows from room to room, this won’t line up
your shadows into precise patterns, but if you just need one shadow in a certain place each
round, this does it for you. This is absolutely an action worth losing a card for.

Shadow Step: Medium lets us focus just on moving ourself and lets the loss take care of shifting
shadows around. We can open scenarios with the top to jump-start our shadow economy, then
play the bottom on our second cycle to accelerate even further.

Puppetmaster: We would love Medium’s bottom action, but Dominate is just too good to pass
up. A powerful attack, a better way to make dark, and a powerful CC option make this the better
choice.
 Level 6

I’m a sucker for summons, so I love the top of The Night Takes Shape. This summon will
probably live through two hits due to its disadvantage and decent health, and if you have your
other summon, they both get the bonus. However, this summon doesn’t hit harder or move
further than your level one summon, and the cost of a second shadow does hurt. This is a great
way to translate your shadows in a room into power in the next room (assuming you will be at
an odd hand size if you pulled this card back), but not something that I would prioritize unless
the shadows are going to waste anyway.
Besides, you’d then need to give up the bottom action, which is fantastic. We have seen some
bottom sources of damage, but this is our first and only bottom attack, which also moves both
us and a shadow. You don’t need to use the teleport if you’re already in the right spot, so this
only costs a shadow if you need that part. Of course, if you are standing still, you’ll need to hit
hard enough that the enemy will reliably die, and you’ll need to do it quickly.

Vengeful Storm is a clean upgrade to Anger of the Dead. Attack three is an above average use
for shadow consumption, and the tempo gained by this action is huge. Besides, you should be
able to line up enough kills with this that you won’t actually lose as many shadows as you
spend; as with our other multitarget options, be sure to target the potential kills first for maximum
shadows. You can’t consume a shadow that you create to add additional targets, as you need to
consume all targets before the start of the action, but six attack threes is an absolutely
phenominal use of your time.
We’re never really going to want to give this up, but the loss on bottom can be phenomenal.
Stun things in a large AOE and wound them, all but guaranteeing at least two direct damage
each. The top is good enough that we don’t want to give this up unless we’re getting insane
value, but if we can stun five or more enemies we’re happy to pivot.

Shadow Step: We would take The Night Takes Shape even if it was only an attack three on
bottom. All the other text makes this choice easy.

Puppetmaster: Vengeful Storm is the single most powerful card for this build.
 Level 7

Hungry Grasps is a simple, effective action. It’s a similar power level to Fluid Night, but it hits
two targets instead of one and doesn’t cost us a shadow. The pull can be nice to get things into
position for actions like Deepening Despair, and if you’re lucky, the first action kills a target,
netting you two shadows.
The bottom action is definitely not something you build around, but if you can get off five heals
and five blesses on characters that need them, this action does great work. I wouldn’t use it
unless you can get all five and remove a few conditions, as the stamina cost is definitely
significant.

Proliferation of the Abyss’ top action is a slight upgrade to Fluid Night. We can use it to protect
an ally (near a shadow) instead of ourself, which makes this action great for a support build.
And if you have dark, you get a spare shadow. It doesn’t feel like enough of an upgrade to justify
putting a level 1 action on the top of a level 7 card, so neither of our damaging builds will be
using this in combat. Still, setting this up between rooms is a fine use of our time.
The bottom action is a strong upgrade to Wave of Anguish, allowing us to reposition ourself and
our shadows all at once. It’s a shame we don’t get XP for this darkness, but it’s likely we’ll be
able to get value without the extra movement enough of the time.
Shadow Step: We’ll take Proliferation of the Abyss here. We badly need more to do with our
darkness, and this provides two decent options, one to generate a shadow and one to put us in
a stronger position.

Puppetmaster: Hungry Graps is usually the best option. However, this isn’t much better than our
existing attacks, and we do actually have enough of them now that if we aren’t getting value out
of the pulls this is a mediocre choice. You could go back to levels 6 or 5 and take The Night
Takes Shape if you really like summons, or Medium if you feel like you want to prioritize your
bottom actions for things that aren’t shadow movement (such as looting). In particular, I would
recommend taking Medium if you took Restless Spirits back at level two, since that’s something
more to do on bottom.
 Level 8

Frozen in Fear provides an absurd amount of crowd control. You can very quickly immobilize a
huge group of monsters. The monsters then suffer one or two direct damage. Note that this
targets all immobilized enemies, not just those you immobilized with this ability. Don’t stress too
much about the dark; you get the XP one way or the other, and the immobilize is typically more
important than the damage here.
The bottom action lets us create and reposition shadows. At this point, we should be able to
make enough shadows using our attacks, Call to the Abyss, and nonloss shadow generation,
but if we need a very high tempo opening to a scenario or to a new room, this card perfectly fits
the bill. I’d recommend using this action in scenarios with lots of ranged enemies, so that giving
up the immobilize isn’t a huge cost.

The top of Lashing Tendrils is not a card you bring for yourself. If you have a strong, dedicated
tank, such as a drifter or bannerspear, then this action can represent a huge amount of damage.
I won’t go into heavy detail builds that use the top half of this card, because they don’t synergize
with anything else we do. However, if you like supporting and you have such a tank, you can
build around this and other support cards (such as Proliferation of the Abyss, Ritual Sacrifice,
and Rest in the Shade).
For our purposes, the bottom is a strong, spammable action. Reposition your shadows, and get
three or five damage as a bottom action. We typically want the shadows close to enemies
anyway, so we’re often killing two birds with one stone here. Just be careful: since the damage
is not an attack, it does not mark enemies to make shadows, so we usually want to use this on
something we’ve already marked or something that won’t die straightaway.

Shadow Step: Frozen in Fear is the better option most of the time. If your party is very good at
CC or doesn’t mind taking hits, then you could consider taking Lashing Tendrils for the bottom,
or even going back to level 4 for Fleeting Dusk if you find you want to lean a bit more into
shadow consumption. However, being able to immobilize such a large area will be the best thing
for us in most parties, especiall those with high player counts where this will hit lots of enemies.

Puppetmaster: Lashing Tendrils is perfect, giving us something doubly productive to do on

bottom.
 Level 9

Black Lance represents an epic reward for careful shadow positioning. Theoretically, this
represents attack 19, which is of course unparalleled for a nonloss action. Of course, this
requires lining up five shadows, spending them all, and increasing the range of your movement
with powerful boots not available early in the game. More realistically, this will be an attack ten
or thirteen, which is still plenty! Three damage per shadow meets the same threshold as
Vengeful Storm at level six, but piling it all into one attack makes us better at taking out bosses
and tanky, shielded enemies.
When surrounded by a multitude of weak enemies, the top will probably be overkill, at which
point we can use the bottom. Lining up 3-4 curses is extraordinarily powerful, and the fast
initiative means you can ensure you get in there before the enemies declump. A fantastic
capstone for deathwalkers that like to get up close and personal.

For those that like to stay back, When Your Time Comes is excellent. The top represents a fairly
weak attack, followed by a huge amount of damage when the target dies. If you manage to kill
the target, you get an immediate shadow from Call to the Abyss, and you get the damage
splash in what is hopefully an optimal location. If you don’t kill the target (a much more likely
outcome), you get a curse, which is not a small consolation.
On bottom, you get Call to the Abyss jr. It’s hard to say whether this is better or worse on
average. You don’t need to attack to get these shadows, but you do need darkness, which is
something we could use for other effects. A support deathwalker could use only this bottom
action and channel all of their dark into shadows. Realistically, a deathwalker that is attacking
should be able to make enough shadows without this action, and will prefer the top of this card
or one of the actions on Black Lance in order to use the shadows they’re already making with
greater efficiency. Still, between Vengeful Storm and Anger of the Dead, we could run a build
where we run this loss and Call to the Abyss, and consume our shadows with absurd frequency.

Shadow Step: We have an easy choice in Black Lance. This is a perfect reward for keeping our
shadows in the right places, and a powerful bottom action when we don’t want to eat them up.

Puppetmaster: We’ll take When Your Time Comes. The top and the bottom are both great
choices for us, so you can’t really go wrong with which action you prioritize. I would probably
choose on a per-scenario basis which one to prioritize.
 Shadow Step Build
Summary
The Shadow Step build lets the Deathwalker attack from melee range, empowering their
abilities by standing in shadows. The goal of this build is to keep our shadow count as close to
five as possible for the majority of the scenario, spending shadows only when we’re at our cap,
and moving in and out of the battle in order to make use of our powerful melee attacks.

There are a few reason why you might prefer the Shadow Step build for Deathwalker:

1. You enjoy high risk, high reward gameplay. This build will require a low HP character to
get within melee range of monsters at high frequency. You can dish out absurd damage,
but you need to put yourself in grave danger to pull it off.
2. You couldn’t decide between this class and the blinkblade, and went with this class. This
class will play much like a blinkblade in that they will need to initiative weave in order to
have the highest success, and can occasionally abuse invisibility in order to stay in the
fray longer. Your health is lower than a Blinkblade, so you will need to rely on these
techniques even more if you value your life.

If your party has these things, the Shadow Step build will fit well:

● A strong frontline. This build runs almost no damage mitigation, so you really don’t want
to be taking more than one or two small hits a cycle. Since you will be up in the thick of it
more often than not, you will be more successful if you have someone else who is trying
to soak up some damage. Bannerspear, a defensive Drifter, or a Boneshaper making
swarms of skeletons are all great allies for you.
● Friends with crowd control. We have little to no options for disabling our enemies, so that
kind of assistance is very welcome. Geminate has lots of losses that fill this role for us.
 Level 1 Cards

Core Level 1 Cards

Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

These are our cards that we will bring to every single scenario, until we gain a few levels and
find stronger replacements. We’ll be sorting cards into three major categories: attacks,
movement/utility, and shadow management. Some cards will have the flexibility to be used in
multiple roles; as these arise, we’ll mark these in yellow.

In order for anything we do to make sense, we’re going to need shadows. Every build will
generate shadows using Call to the Abyss, and most will rely on the top action in order to
regularly generate shadows. We will want to play this on our first turn in most scenarios,
although if the opening is particularly high pressure we can delay it until the second cycle and
run Eclipse early instead. We can use Wave of Anguish to move shadows around when
necessary, and Eclipse to drop extra shadows if there is a particularly high pressure situation.
Until that arises, we’re going to be very happy with Eclipse’s move 4.

We now have three powerful, short range attacks. Strength of the Abyss is the justification for
why we consume shadows slowly, as we can get a nonloss attack six if we respect our shadow
economy. Shadow Step is weaker, but has incredible initiative and lets us reposition on top,
letting us run in and out in the same turn if the enemies are particularly threatening, or else
move shadows into position on bottom. Finally, Forceful Spirits lets us hit a few enemies from
range, which is useful for when enemies are low and we think we might be able to kill one
enemy and kill or mark another.

Finally, we’ll need to move ourself around more than simply Eclipse allows. Two move threes,
with a nice bonus of poison and/or darkness, should get the job done most of the time.
Example Level One Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

We will need three additional cards to round out our build. Most of the time, Fluid Night will be a
strong choice that allows us to spend our excess shadows, either as an additional strong attack
on top or as a safety net on bottom. Be sure not to do this unless we’re at or close to max
shadows, or we are sacrificing power from Strength of the Abyss. Sunless Apparation is nice as
it’s typically worth keeping around at least one teleport action that we don’t want to attack with,
and gives us a great way to spend shadows when we have a bit of a low pressure moment (or
conversely, if it’s too dangerous to go in for a round). This leaves us with one empty slot. I would
typically bring either Anger of the Dead or Dark Fog to fill the final spot. Anger of the Dead is our
fastest initiative, so even if we don’t care much for the abilities we’re often ok to simply play a
very fast move two. 14 initiative beats both guards and archers at their fastest, and as these
enemies are plentiful in the early game, this will probably save us a lost card at least once in a
scenario. If you feel that another fast initiative isn’t essential, Dark Fog will let us move one
shadow up when we have nothing better to do. It also lets us line up Shadow Step more easily,
although running up in the middle of the round can be very scary if we don’t kill our target. The
loss on Dark Fog is at least decent, although we will need to watch our stamina. You could even
consider bringing both of these, at which point I would cut Sunless Apparition. In scenarios
where you don’t anticipate teleporting much, that will likely be the strongest choice.
 Openers
We’ll start by listing out an example of what your first three turns might look like when starting a
scenario. The action outlined is the one we’ll use for initiative.

High Tempo
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action

This isn’t the ideal opener, but if our team needs us to have some impact immediately, this is the
way we can provide some. We use Call to the Abyss bottom late, allowing enemies to first
approach, and immediately spend that shadow on Lingering Rot, in order to damage and poison
whatever threat is staring us down. The following round, we create some shadows with Eclipse,
make some darkness, and use Fluid Night to defend ourself if something goes wrong. On the
third turn, we can use Forceful Spirits to hit decently hard, hopefully kliling one or two enemies.
This leaves us with 2-3 shadows, and we can move the following turn to get an attack 3-4 with
Shadow Step or Strength of the Abyss. It’s not ideal, as we are likely losing out on shadows long
term without marking things with Call to the Abyss. However, we can still remain relatively
powerful as we can avoid spending shadows and maintain our count of three until we have time
to properly put up Call to the Abyss later on. If it seems like it’s going to be a very long scenario
and you still feel pressured to perform this style of opening, you can continue to use Call to the
Abyss’ bottom action for a few cycles. It’ll slow you down both in terms of movement and
shadow tempo, but it will keep you alive for longer, which is sometimes more important. This
opening is significantly strengthened if you can reclaim Call to the Abyss using an item similar to
Gloomhaven’s stamina potion and replace the second turn cards with Call to the Abyss and Call
of Doom, and then gain two shadows with Forceful Spirits. Being down one shadow but having
Call to the Abyss active is a massive improvement for us, so if you do find this kind of item, be
sure to fight very hard for it.

Low Tempo
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action
 Bottom
Action

If we can afford one full turn of setting up, this is a powerful option. We set up Call to the Abyss
and make our darkness one turn earlier than the other build, but don’t contribute anything to
dealing with the impending threat until the second round. If we can pick up two shadows with
Forceful Spirits, then a third with Shadow Step the following round, then we’ve gotten Strength
of the Abyss up to a respectable level. We’ll try not to spend any shadows unless we would take
damage; if that looks likely, find a turn to set up Fluid Night, which we can leave up while resting
as we’ll be at nine cards after our rest, so it won’t cost us a turn. We can plan to use Fluid Night
as an attack later in the scenario once we’ve hit five shadows and it won’t cost us nearly as
much.
 Strategy for Leveling
As we level, we will always be focusing on a few things: powerful melee attacks; safer ways to
position ourselves; and more efficient ways to move our shadows around. We will want to
rapidly pick up the “enemies gain disadvantage while we stand in shadows” perk, but even with
this, we don’t want to frequently take hits, so we want to focus on initiative weaving, invisibility,
and slow positioning behind our tanks whenever possible. We will need to choose cards that
validate these choices.
Level 2 Level-up Choice
Level 2 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Restless Spirits gives us a more efficient way to spend a shadow, and lets us use Fluid Night
more frequently for its bottom safety net; still, in situations where we have lots of excess
shadows and want to prioritize damage over our own safety, we can run Fluid Night on top and
Restless Spirits on bottom. Either way, this spends two shadows per cycle, which is about what
we’re looking for at this point in our build (after we’ve hit our maximum, of course). We now have
4-5 reliable attacks, and a few strong ways to consume shadows once we hit our stride.
Consider bringing back Anger of the Dead in place of Sunless Apparition against enemies with
very fast and threatening attacks, as sometimes all you need is a move two at very fast initiative.
Level 3 Level-up Choice
Level 3 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Ritual Sacrifice offers us an incredibly fast initiative attached to our core element, which also
provides the potential for a very powerful attack if we can ever find the time to line up our
shadows properly (something we aren’t actively prioritizing at this stage). We probably aren’t
trying to summon anymore, and this provides the initiative we needed, so we can cut whichever
of Sunless Apparition or Anger of the Dead we were leaning on.
Level 4 Level-up Choice
Level 4 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Pulled Across lets us play much more riskily, moving in early to turn invisible and them moving
out late (perhaps with Eclipse or Lingering Rot) the following round. It’s a fairly clean upgrade to
Call of Doom, as we now have two ways to make darkness on a move (and really only one way
we want to be consuming it anyway). I would recommend bringing back Call of Doom in place of
Fluid Night or Shadow Step in scenarios with particularly high movement demands, as a single
move 4 and move 3 might not cut it. That being said, we do have teleports and a top move to
get us out of sticky situation, so we can often get by with this build.
Level 5 Level-up Choice
Level 5 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Medium is perhaps our single largest power shift at any level. With the ability to move a shadow
for free each turn, we can more easily get off effects such as Restless Spirits, and we actually
have a chance of lining up a strong Ritual Sacrifice attack. We’ll cut Shadow Step, as Ritual
Sacrifice fits the “basic attack on a fast initiative” role more appropriately at this stage, and as
we don’t really need the top movement now that we don’t need to focus our bottom actions on
manipulation shadows as frequently. For a similar reason, Restless Spirits will now always be an
attack for us, leaving Fluid Night open to be a get-out-of-jail-free card.
 Mid-Build Reflection
We’ve now got at minimum four perks, plus likely 2-3 more from battle goals and other sources.
More importantly, we have Medium available to let us position shadows more freely and access
our strongest abilities. However, we probably use Medium’s top action rather than its loss in the
first cycle. Most of the shadows we’ll be making will be next to enemies, which is where we want
them anyway, and we can make small adjustments with Wave of Anguish as needed. It’s more
important to run a big attack and make extra shadows than to reposition the very few shadows
we’ll obtain in our first volley.

Low Tempo opener using Medium

Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action

We’ll still set up Call to the Abyss immediately, pairing it with Ritual Sacrifice for the darkness.
On the following turn, we move in slowly and use Medium to kill an enemy, generating two
shadows. Turn three lets us make 1-2 more with Forceful Spirits, and by turn 4 we’ve got
Strength of the Abyss to a very respectable power level. We can set up Medium after we rest
once or twice, and then take the time to push our shadows forward.

Let’s focus on what it might look like when we’re entering a new room. Ideally we’ll have our
tank open the door for us, and we’ll be positioned as close to the doorway as possible. We’ll
have both Call to the Abyss and Medium set up, and we’ll have at least 4 shadows from the
previous room, with at least one close to the door.

New Room Opener

Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action

We enter the room slowly, hitting hard with Strength of the Abyss on a poisoned target. The
following turn, we move quickly (using Ritual Sacrifice on top instead if we think we need an
incredibly fast initiative to survive), then hit again and turn invisible. The following turn, moving
slowly to maximize our time out of sight, we use our dark to clean up with Forceful Spirits. At this
point we should have enough shadows nearby (new ones from kills and old ones moved in with
Medium) that we can line up Ritual Sacrifice if we have another turn before resting; if not, we
can use Eclipse’s movement to rush away, long rest while we move even more shadows into
position, and then begin the next cycle with Ritual Sacrifice and Pulled Across to wipe out
whatever didn’t survive our first wave.
Level 6 Level-up Choice
Level 6 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

The Night Takes Shape gives us another way to use up shadows, which is probably for the best
as we are likely generating enough that we can afford to spend a third one most cycles. In any
case, it’s our one and only bottom attack, which we’ll want to use each and every cycle. I would
cut Wave of Anguish here, as Medium plus The Night Takes Shape should be handling all of our
shadow movement, but if you feel like you still need a little bit of extra shadow positioning you
can cut Lingering Rot or Eclipse instead; this desirable teleport means we can get away with
one fewer big move.
Level 7 Level-up Choice
Level 7 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Proliferation of the Abyss finally gives us another valid use for our darkness, no matter which
half we use. Both of these actions are incredibly valuable, and I would choose on a per-scenario
basis which one you think you’ll be emphasizing. If you’re using the bottom, then we don’t need
Lingering Rot and Eclipse, so I would cut whichever of those you like least. If you’re using the
top, then Fluid Night is completely redundant, so that’s the cut. We can rearrange all of these
options as needed, but I think for a standard three room scenario I would typically cut Fluid
Night by default.
Level 8 Level-up Choice
Level 8 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Frozen in Fear provides something we don’t really have much of in this class: crowd control. We
can use this in scenarios with lots of melee enemies when we don’t really feel safe going in,
although most of the time we should be able to figure out a way to survive with invisibility. This
isn’t really for our own safety, but that of our team. Since the bottom provides an emergency
shadow drop, we shouldn’t really need Eclipse anymore. We have enough burst movement for
fighting, and if we anticipate a long journey between battles, we have two teleport options to
move us forward.
Level 9 Level-up Choice
Level 9 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Forceful Spirits was doing great things for us, but the main benefit was generating two shadows
from one turn by killing one of the targets. Realistically the enemies are high enough level at this
point that we aren’t getting two kills with this action as frequently, and we have Proliferation of
the Abyss to make us a spare shadow on occasion, so this is less essential for us now. Pair that
with the fact that Frozen in Fear gives us another option for dark consumption, and we’re
perfectly happy to let this one go. We’ll use Black Lance as our strongest attack by far, though
we can use the bottom in a pinch.
 Perks
1. We want to reliably kill so that we are leaving
around shadows more frequently than marks. We’ll cut
the (-2) immediately so that we can rely on a (-1) or
better to kill if we don’t miss.
2. Our next perk should be the non-AMD that forces
enemies attacking us while in shadows to gain
disadvantage. Without this benefit, we won’t be able to
take any risks early on and this build would be much too
dangerous.
3. We now go back for even more consistency.
Remove 2 (-1)s and replace the rest with (+1)s so we
know we can rely on dealing at least as much damage
as our attacks say.
4. These are all the perks we really need, so
everything else is gravy. I would ignore scenario effects
next, so that we don’t put negatives back into our deck.
5. Upgrade the (0)s into (+1, curse) cards. It’s very
unlikely that the curse matters (we are killing most of the
time anyway), but the value is important and the curse
will be a good consolation prize if we aren’t getting some
kills.
6. By now, you should know whether you’ll be long
or short resting more. Both are very valuable for us, so
pick the perk that goes with your typical resting style and
take the other one very last.
7. We can put in the rolling modifiers based on what
your team needs. We’re aiming to kill with most hits, so
we usually prioritize the rolling heals because those still
work if you land a killing blow, but disarm and muddle
are fantatsic for tanky enemies or when things go wrong.
8. We barely have any use for dark. Still, a (+2) is a
(+2), so we’ll grab these over doing nothing.
 Enhancements
Early game, the best thing we can do is enhance our movements, as we have such a small
number of large movements. Wave of Anguish is a quality option as we can increase the move
speed of us and our shadows if we’re willing to shell out the cash. I would also consider
Lingering Rot, so that we don’t have to rely on Eclipse as much. Shadow Step is the only level
one attack we can really get value from enhancing; I would probably just put a +1, as securing
kills is quite important to us, but wound is also fine. Restless Spirits is also an excellent option;
it’s not that much more expensive at level two, and it’s an attack we’re very happy to use. I like
wound here, as keeping the attack value low (if six can be called low) secures us the curse, and
yet still does additional damage in order to get us the shadow shortly after.
 Puppetmaster Build
Summary
The Puppetmaster build focuses on the Deathwalker’s ability to attack from afar, and consume
shadows in bulk for additional, powerful effects. This build has a higher emphasis on dark
consumption, lower focus on keeping our shadow count high, and puts us in much less physical
danger.

There are a few reason why you might prefer the Puppetmaster build for Deathwalker:

1. You don’t enjoy getting in close with your low health pool. This build will take far fewer
hits overall than the other build, so you aren’t risking losing cards due to your low health
pool. If you’re doing your job right, you shouldn’t really take any hits that you don’t want
to.
2. You like resource management. This build has to determine when and how to spend
their shadows, and makes liberal use of dark with their abilities. You’ll need to manage
both pools of resources in order to maximize your impact.
3. You like big, bursty turns. A few times each scenario, you’ll be able to spend a huge
chunk of shadows for value that would otherwise be lost.

If your party has these things, the Puppetmaster build will fit well:

● A crowded frontline. Your shadows will weave around the enemies, but they don’t block
movement, so you’ll never be in the way. Melee classes and summon classes in high
player count parties will like that you can stand very far back.
● Low damage and high crowd control. You deal a ton of damage but don’t really have
good ways to lock enemies down, so if others can hold them still you’ll be able to take
them out.
● Additional payoff for curse. This build does a lot of damage, but in smaller, more spaced
out instances, so it’s more likely that you’ll be able to apply curse here. If you have a
party that benefits from this, such as a Critical Failure Boneshaper, then this is the way
you can help them the most.
 Level 1 Cards

Core Level 1 Cards

Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

These are our cards that we will bring to every single scenario, until we gain a few levels and
find stronger replacements. We’ll be sorting cards into three major categories: attacks,
movement/utility, and shadow management. Some cards will have the flexibility to be used in
multiple roles; as these arise, we’ll mark these in yellow.

In order for anything we do to make sense, we’re going to need shadows. Every build will
generate shadows using Call to the Abyss, and most will rely on the top action in order to
regularly generate shadows. We will want to play this on our first turn in most scenarios,
although if the opening is particularly high pressure we can delay it until the second cycle and
run Eclipse early instead. We don’t care much about moving ourself, so we rely on Dark Fog
and Black Barrage to move our shadows around. Dark Fog is more important early, as it’s
difficult for us to move our shadows from room to room and we don’t really need more than one
or two in position at once anyway. As a result, we can use Black Barrage as an attack when
necessary.

Fluid Night and Forceful Spirits are our best attacks by a wide margin. We shouldn’t ever be in
danger, so we won’t need the bottom of Fluid Night. Forceful Spirits does require us to get
reasonably close to the fight but we should be able to coordinate so either our tank secures our
safety, or else we kill the enemies in question. Anger of the Dead serves as our way to convert
excess shadows into value before we have the cards to move them to the next room, as well as
a great source of XP. When used on a shielded enemy, we’re getting good value for our
shadows.

We’ll bring Call of Doom as dark generation, which we need more badly as we level up, but is
still strong for Forceful Spirits now. Sunless Aparition is essential to teleport us ahead, and we’re
very happy to create the summon if we know we won’t be moving to the next room before we
rest.
Example Level One Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

We are two cards short of a full build now. There’s not really anything else we want, but there
are two cards that we cannot use (Strength of the Abyss and Shadow Step), so we only have to
cut one more card. This will usually be Rest in Shade; the other cards don’t really offer things
we need, but their nonloss actions are fine and we do very much like the loss actions they
provide. It is tempting to use lots of losses on this class, as Lingering Rot, Dark Fog, and Wave
of Anguish all provide very big bursts of damage. However, we cannot get away with skipping
Call to the Abyss on this build, and as a result we absolutely need to watch our stamina. This
means you should drop Wave of Anguish or Lingering Rot on your first rest, and probably drop
the other on your second. However, you can usually afford to play one additional loss to Call to
the Abyss in the middle of a scenario, so if you don’t need Eclipse and you feel like Dark Fog’s
bottom is too important, you can keep around whichever you prefer to drop on the round when
you’re at eight or six cards.
 Openers
We’ll start by listing out an example of what your first three turns might look like when starting a
scenario. The action outlined is the one we’ll use for initiative.

High Tempo
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action

This isn’t the ideal opener, but if our team needs us to have some impact immediately, this is the
way we can provide some. We absolutely cannot skip setting up Call to the Abyss on our first
cycle; we consume shadows too rapidly to wait. However, we can get away with dropping
Eclipse first and having 1-2 turns of value before setting it up on the back half of cycle one. Drop
three shadows under enemies and activate Anger of the Dead, hopefully in such a way that
additional enemies will run through these shadows and you’ll get off 4-5 wounds, 3 of which tick
instantly. The following turn, use one of these shadows with Fluid Night to kill a key target. If you
have time, set up Call to the Abyss here and use Call of Doom to make darkness, and delay the
attack for another round; if not, you can set up Call to the Abyss afterwards. We could get away
with using Call to the Abyss’s bottom action turn one if we had a way to reclaim it (such as a
stamina potion from Gloomhaven) and then put it up on the second or third turn. One way to do
this is to summon immediately, then put up Call to the Abyss, and then attack on turn three. This
would be a moderate tempo opening where you delay yourself by one turn but get a summon
out, and don’t sacrifice too much in terms of shadows.

Low Tempo
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action
If we can afford one full turn of setting up, this is a powerful option. We set up Call to the Abyss
and make our darkness one turn earlier than the other build, but don’t contribute anything to
dealing with the impending threat until the second round. Turn two our goal is to kill one target
and mark another, giving us one shadow immediately and one on deck. Best case scenario,
someone else kills our marked target before we go on round three, and if we get a kill with Fluid
Night then we have two shadows to work with at this point, which is all we’ll really ever need at
once.

Remember to leave no shadow behind. At the end of a room, you have two choices: try to move
all of your shadows to the next room, or consume them all to avoid losing value (both damage
and experience). Moving them all is slow for us now as we can only move one shadow more
than 3 hexes for the entire rest cycle, so unless they’re already near the doorway I’d go the
other route until we’re higher level. We can consume all of our shadows with Anger of the Dead
for a huge chunk of XP, potentially summoning as well with Sunless Apparition if we have the
time and the right hand size. It’s often worth leaving behind one shadow, pushing it forwards
with Dark Fog, and then either using it for Fluid Night or teleporting to it when you need to
advance.
 Strategy for Leveling
As we level, we will always be focusing on a few things: strong attacks from a distance, more
efficient ways to consume shadows, and more efficient ways to move shadows. Early on, our
priority will be attacking, as we have lots of decent shadow options, but only two attacks that
we’re really happy to spam right now.
Level 2 Level-up Choice
Level 2 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Deepening Despair provides another attack that we’re very happy to use. It isn’t as powerful as
our other attacks, but it doesn’t eat shadows and doesn’t put us in danger, and it has an
absurdly fast initiative. We’ll cut Wave of Anguish, as we rarely need to move ourself and our
shadows at the same time, and relegate Black Barrage to near-permanent shadow
management.
Level 3 Level-up Choice
Level 3 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Dead Bolt is a fine attack (with darkness) and our best Shadow movement option. With it, we
actually have a chance to move our shadows between rooms, especially if we can use it, rest,
and then use it again. Now that we won’t be leaving as many shadows behind, dropping Eclipse
in the second room is less exciting for us. Still, we never really want to be next to enemies, so
we’ll prefer it over Lingering Rot as a generic movement option that we can drop as a loss if
absolutely necessary.
Level 4 Level-up Choice
Level 4 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

This is by far our biggest power spike yet; being able to create shadows on the fly will
revolutionize our scenario openers and give us something great to do when we don’t need to
move ourself or our shadows. We’re basically never playing Eclipse’s top action anymore, but
it’s still something we can drop in the last room for some free XP with Anger of the Dead, and
our best movement option when we don’t need to teleport. As a result, I’d typically cut Black
Barrage here; however, if you know you won’t be walking very much, then you can instead cut
Eclipse, shift Black Barrage to an attack, and play Forceful Spirits as a teleport. Forceful Spirits
is really the only reason we’re bothering to position ourself anymore, so if you aren’t using that
then two teleports a cycle should be more than enough. The main reason we haven’t made this
choice already is that teleporting instead of moving means we’ll be very loot poor, so walking
around every now and again will find us the resources we need.
 Mid-Build Reflection
We’ve now got at minimum three perks, plus likely 2-3 more from battle goals and other
sources. More importantly, we have Fleeting Dusk available to let us create a shadow in our
spare time. This drastically improves our options for starting the scenario:

Turn One Turn Two Turn Three

Top Action

Bottom
Action

On the first round, we’ll still set up Call to the Abyss, but we’ll create a shadow instead of
darkness. This sets us up to shove the shadow at our most likely kill, then take it out, going
shadow neutral. The following round, we use the dark and Forceful Spirits to get two more kills,
bringing us up to three shadows. We can use these shadows for a respectable Anger of the
Dead, or save them for the next room.
Level 5 Level-up Choice
Level 5 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Dominate is an easy replacement for Eclipse. The top is much stronger, the bottom makes us
dark, and since we aren’t frequently putting ourself in danger, we’d rather have another
kinda-fast initiative than a very slow one.
Level 6 Level-up Choice
Level 6 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Vengeful Storm is our biggest power spike at any level. Our baseline for shadow consumption is
now three attack, and we should never settle for less. It’s an easy replacement for Anger of the
Dead; this was really only ever for XP and occasionally shielded enemies, and if we really need
to deal with shields we have several large attacks that will decently get the job done. That being
said, if you encounter a scenario with enemies that have 3+ innate shield, Anger of the Dead is
still worth swapping back in for one of your other utility options on a per-scenario basis.
Level 7 Level-up Choice
Level 7 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Hungry Grasps does exactly the same thing as Forceful Spirits, except it doesn’t require us to
position ourself or to consume dark. Still, Forceful Spirits is a powerful attack and our best
teleport, so we’ll cut Sunless Apparition instead. Now that we have Vengeful Storm, we don’t
really need the summon to find high value from our shadows; it is slightly better than one extra
attack three, but not enough extra to cost us a whole extra turn.

If you really like summons, and you know that your party won’t care about the pulls in general,
then you can instead go back here for The Night Takes Shape and run a bit of a summon build.
We don’t really have the tools to keep our summons alive, but spamming curses combined with
disadvantage on both summons can be strong. If you are starting this class at high enough level
that you’ll have both summons for quite some time, you can also pick Restless Spirits at level
two and just work to maximize your curses. This probably won’t be better than simply spamming
attacks, but it’s something you can do if you want to try something different.
Level 8 Level-up Choice
Level 8 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

Lashing Tendrils is an extraordinarily powerful bottom option for us. Five direct damage on
bottom and another great use for darkness, while advancing our shadows, is exactly what we
need here. Most of the time this is a pretty clear replacement for Dark Fog; the loss is a bit less
exciting now that we have Vengeful Storm, and we have enough ways to keep our shadows
moving that we aren’t as excited to just move one at a time. That being said, if the scenario has
a huge distance to traverse, cut Call of Doom instead (if you haven’t enhanced it yet) or Fluid
Night (if Call is enhanced) so that you can shove one shadow as far forwards as possible.
Level 9 Level-up Choice
Level 9 Hand
Shadow Management

Standard Attacks

Movement and Utility

What to cut here depends very much on whether you want to use the top or the bottom of When
Your Time Comes. The top is a decent attack in an AOE, which is what Call of Doom does, so
we can make the upgrade. A move three that makes dark is starting to be mediocre, so we’ll let
it go. Conversely, if you’ve decided you prefer to use the bottom of When Your Time Comes, we
won’t need as much shadow management since we’ll be spamming new shadows fairly rapidly.
We can drop Dead Bolt or Fleeting Dusk, or even drop both to bring back Anger of the Dead; if
shadows are cheap, then we’re happy to consume them freely again. Either way, after
potentially one turn of setting up, we are well past the point where we’re making one very
powerful attack every single turn.
 Perks
1. The most important thing for us by far is
consistency. We need to guarantee that we kill whenever
we can, so we need to get rid of all of our negatives. The
order isn’t hugely significant, but I prefer to first remove
my (-1)s, then replace the (-2), and then replace the
remaining (-1)s.
2. Moving a shadow on long rest is a very large
benefit for us, so we’ll pick that one up next. It’s very
frequent that this saves a shadow from becoming
completely worthless.
3. The curse and dark modifiers both do things that
we like. Ideally we’ll be getting kills, but we make
enough little attacks that this isn’t guaranteed, so the
order of these two is up for personal preference. I prefer
the dark modifiers first, but it’s a very close call.
4. Everything from this point is much less important.
If your party needs healing or is bad at dealing with
poison/wound/etc, I would grab the heals next. If they
lack CC, you can snag the disarm and muddle. If you
find yourself short resting frequently, snag the short rest
perk. If none of these apply, ignore scenario effects.
5. The disadvantage perk isn’t bad, but the odds
that we’ll be taking a hit is very slim, so we take this one
last.
 Enhancements
The simplest choice here is Call of Doom. Doubling the value of potentially seven attacks is
massive, and makes this card worth using for its top action much earlier. It is an expensive
enhancement, but it’s enough better than the rest of our options that it’s well worth saving for.
After that, we simply have lots of single target attacks that we can enhance. I would typically
recommend just going for a +1 in these cases. Poison isn’t as exciting because we’re typically
hoping something dies before we’re hitting it again. Wound looks good in theory, but there will
be enough times that we just want to kill something and move the shadow immediately that it’s
just not worth the small chance that it lives long enough for wound to be two damage instead of
one, especially given that wound is the more expensive damaging option. You could consider
putting immobilize on one of your attacks if your party really lacks CC, and use that once a cycle
on the hulking melee creature you know you won’t bring down in one go, but for most parties it’s
just better for you to snag more kills and cycle more shadows.